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Today, the White House is touting the fact that GM has repaid $5.8 billion in loans.  Yet the White House seems to have forgotten that GM is using TARP funds to repay the money they owe us.  At a Senate hearing yesterday, Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) asked Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for TARP, about GM and Barofsky pointed out that taxpayers are actually the ones paying back GM’s loan:

“It's good news in that they're reducing their debt,” Barofsky said of the accelerated GM payments, “but they're doing it by taking other available TARP money.”

What the White House also fails to mention is the fact that the U.S. still owns 60 percent of GM.  The Wall Street Journal points out that GM has a long way to go to pay back taxpayers.

The loan is a fraction of the $50 billion GM received from the U.S. government last year. The big payback will come when GM goes public and the U.S. can begin to sell off its 60% stake in the company.

After advocating for taxpayer-funded bailouts in their financial regulation bill and engaging in endless binge spending, it is not surprising that the White House is desperate to give taxpayers some good news. But taxpayers beware – you are still on the hook for all of Obama’s binge spending, no matter how the administration tries to spin the news.